Great moments in Christmas: School says Jesus on cross “violent image”

posted at 10:55 am on December 15, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

One eight-year-old in Taunton just learned a valuable lesson in political correctness, and a school district may wind up learning a little something about free speech, religious expression, and not asking questions to which one does not want to hear the answers. An elementary school student was asked to draw something that reminded him of Christmas. When he drew a picture of Jesus on a crucifix, the teacher and the administration recoiled in horror at the “violent image.” No, really:

An eight year old elementary school student in Taunton was sent home from school and required to undergo a psychological evaluation after drawing a stick figure picture of Jesus on the cross.

The second grader at Maxham Elementary school was told by this teacher that the drawing was violent. This was after the class was asked to sketch something that reminded them of Christmas. …

The father tells the “Taunton Gazette” because his son put Xs on the eyes of Jesus, the teacher thought it was violent.

But he drew Jesus with a smile! Doesn’t that count for anything?

It’s hard to imagine a more clueless, knee-jerk response than the one given by this school. First, Jesus on a crucifix has been a symbol of Christianity for two millenia. Since Christmas is in fact a Christian holiday, at least nominally, the crucifix in this drawing clearly came from Christian symbolism and not some latent threat of a reenactment of the last scenes of Spartacus from a second grader. How dense or deliberately obtuse must a teacher and administrators be not to understand the symbolism involved in this drawing?

The story does end on a happy note. The father of the student has been given permission for his child to attend another school in the district. They should have transferred the teacher and the administrators instead, preferably to quiet rooms with as little contact with children as possible. The real threat here is that the gross stupidity will infect the students.

But after a few days on the cross themselves — and staying silent because of confidentiality issues — Taunton school officials began telling a much different story. In a statement posted on the system’s Web site, school officials said that in fact the boy had never been suspended, the teacher never requested that the children make a drawing that reminded them of Christmas or any religious holiday, and that the drawing that the boy’s father distributed to the media is in fact not the one the boy’s teacher discovered and was concerned about.

The school said it could not provide further information for reasons of confidentiality, but it noted that until Chester Johnson spoke to the newspaper the family and school officials had been “working together in a cooperative and positive manner.” It said all proper protocols had been followed and that school officials would do the same thing again if presented with similar circumstances …

Johnson acknowledged that his son was not suspended but insisted the drawing was the one that upset the teacher. He added that his son wrote his name above the Christ figure and said it was a self-portrait. It was also reported that in June 2008 a fifth-grade student was suspended from a local middle school for a day after he drew a stick figure that appeared to show him shooting his teacher and a classmate — an event that led some to believe the incident with the second-grader may have been related to that episode and heightened concern over possible school violence since the Columbine massacre.

Still, Johnson wasn’t backing down. The Boston Globe said he “held court” for the media at his girlfriend’s apartment Tuesday, insisting that the school apologize and that his son’s rights were violated. “It hurts me that they did this to my kid,” Johnson said. “They can’t mess with our religion; they owe us a small lump sum for this.”

So the school disputes what the father said, and the father is still sticking to his story. The “self-portrait” claim seems a little beyond a second-grader, but not impossible. Even so, demanding a psychological evaluation over a drawing of a crucifix seems very, very strange — and if the school would do it again, I’d still wonder whether parents wouldn’t do better to follow Johnson’s lead and send their children somewhere else.

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Comments

I understand the teacher/administrator’s reaction. If you look back to WHY the Catholic Church used the symbol of Christ on the Cross to pointedly hold up our Savior and King as opposed to the state (at the time Rome and now BO and his cohorts), yeah… I see why they got upset.

Just think, all these 2,000 years later, Christ on the Cross STILL instills fear and hatred among those who oppose Him and what He stood for. Amazing!

I wonder how many of you Christians though would be speaking a different tune if the kid drew instead violent imagery from another religion such as the death and resurrection of Osiris.

Holger on December 15, 2009 at 12:12 PM

What percentage of the population worships Osiris? Can a teacher be reasonably be expected to spot Egyptian symbols? If the child and his family actually worshiped Osiris then he should be cut some slack.

Maybe, just maybe, you guys can step out of your “all things Christ are good” mindset and look at this from a more neutral standpoint? The kid isn’t being punished for expressing a religious concept, he is being punished for depicting a violent act. Would you be okay with a Muslim majority school allowing students to draw pictures of beheadings?

Count to 10 on December 15, 2009 at 11:56 AM

You don’t see the difference between what Christ endured FOR US, so that we might have forgiveness and violence which is done TO OTHERS because they are not forgiven?

No one knows when Christ was born. There is no evidence in scripture about it, and there is no mention of Christ outside scripture until about 42 AD. Placing his birth in the spring is just speculation.

No one knows when Christ was born. There is no evidence in scripture about it, and there is no mention of Christ outside scripture until about 42 AD. Placing his birth in the spring is just speculation.

Did you awake from a 3000 year coma? You want to argue that the Crucifixion is a ‘violent image’ that meets this requirement then you have to totally strip this out of the context of the society we live in and the task the child was asked to do.

Aside from that you’re also saying that a mildly violent image that doesn’t have any social context should also elicit a psychiatric evaluation?

The fact you claim you are being neutral on this issue tells me that you’re dealing with a lot self-deception regarding your clarity of reasoning.

I would bet that the teacher is under 30 and was raised as an atheist who attended public schools with a PC agenda. He/She may have been truly ignorant of the significance of the image. However, someone in the administration had to know better.

My daughter attended public school for kindergarten. One day, on the playground, she was singing Jesus Loves Me to herself on the swing. Apparently this was an outrage and I was summoned to the school for a meeting to make me aware of my daughter’s need for sensitivity. I was given a sensitivity DVD for her to watch and a tolerance coloring book. Seriously. We enrolled our daughter in Catholic school the next day. We live in an area that is overwhelmingly Republican and military. I wasn’t expecting that garbage here.
It is okay to practice any religion you want in the U.S. as long as it isn’t Christianity

Maybe it’s nothing, but maybe the kid is fixated on violence and death, and is only hiding it behind a pious facade.

Count to 10 on December 15, 2009 at 12:10 PM

Or, maybe, there’s a consequence for dumbing down Education Colleges to the extent that the dumbest college bound people gravitate towards Education. There’s a consequence to churning out teachers, upwards of 60% not being able to pass a 9th grade skills test in Massachusetts.

I assume you have very little experience being around children. Many if not most boys try to work bombs, fighter jets and guns into most things they draw. They also play all sorts of ‘war games’. Are you suggesting that they should all be hauled before doctors for psychiatric evaluations?

I assume you have very little experience being around children. Many if not most boys try to work bombs, fighter jets and guns into most things they draw. They also play all sorts of ‘war games’. Are you suggesting that they should all be hauled before doctors for psychiatric evaluations?

gwelf on December 15, 2009 at 12:39 PM

Sweet merciful lord, THANK YOU.

Add to that list: Dinosaurs, Aliens, Ravenous Animals, Knights, Superheroes, and on and on, pretty much all of which are SHOOTING LAZER BEAMS PEW PEW PEW.

And yet somehow, we’re not spitting out millions of little Charlie Mansons.

There’s a reason they call it the “Passion”. It’s supposed to get you to think about the true meaning of the Christian faith, which is based on Christ’s suffering on humanity’s behalf (and resurrection, I know…).

It’s a fallacy to equate that to actual man-on-man violence like, say, jihad, or gangs (which are like cults).

That the teacher was to stupid (or capricious) to effectively navigate that those facts is a sad indictment of the public ed system , k-16, in this country.

I think the crucifix itself is violent. This was a special device reserved for 2 kinds of people: slaves and enemies of the Roman state. It was the most dishonorable death imaginable and an extremely painful way to die: during the preliminary scourging criminals typically went into shock.

That is why it is a significant symbol in Christianity: Jesus didn’t die in battle, or in his bed, or from poison. He was crucified.

TheUnrepentantGeek on December 15, 2009 at 12:44 PM
——-
So you claim that your parents sat you down and said “Hey little guy, here’s what we believe. But lots of people believe this other stuff and these people believe this other stuff. So do you want to join our religion or another religion or none at all?”

Think process here, not anecdote. Is “violent imagery is acceptable if it has a religious component” really a precedent you want set?

Count to 10 on December 15, 2009 at 12:22 PM

Why should anyone care if a kid draws a violent image, religiously based, or not? I remember my elementary/middle school years. The girls drew pictures of flowers and butterflies. We boys drew pictures of hot rods, monsters, and people getting decapitated.

So you claim that your parents sat you down and said “Hey little guy, here’s what we believe. But lots of people believe this other stuff and these people believe this other stuff. So do you want to join our religion or another religion or none at all?”

yeah right

Dave Rywall on December 15, 2009 at 12:48 PM

They explained the world to me as they saw it. Then made it clear that they would love and support me no matter what I did. Just as my wife’s parents did.

Which is what good parents do in every world beyond the seething ball of hatred you’ve constructed to cushion yourself from uncomfortable realities.

Come on. An eight-year-old wouldn’t understand that the symbolism that he was expressing — that Christians have used for two millennia — of Jesus on a Cross was a violent image at all. What eight-year-old would understand the mechanics of a crucifixion, the most degrading and painful death imaginable?

In all probability, he was showing that he connected Christmas as the birth of Jesus, whom he then connected to his life, death and resurrection. The Jesus who was sent by God to be the savior of us all.

Do you have anything on tap but stupid, done-to-death Daily Show garbage? Any means of communication beyond feeble stereotypes?

Few individuals I’ve seen online are so worthy of pity as an otherwise educated person with nothing better to do with their time than spew unthinking venom at people they’ve never met for imagined wrongs. You’re just sad.

Do you have anything on tap but stupid, done-to-death Daily Show garbage? Any means of communication beyond feeble stereotypes?

Few individuals I’ve seen online are so worthy of pity as an otherwise educated person with nothing better to do with their time than spew unthinking venom at people they’ve never met for imagined wrongs. You’re just sad.

TheUnrepentantGeek on December 15, 2009 at 12:53 PM
———
You need to google Jesus and look at the lily white pictures.

Then maybe you could explain what happened to all those women on the planet who died before the Council of Trent so graciously acknowledged that women actually had souls.

Oh my Lord you’re right – the Bible has zero violence in it.
Thanks for having such a sharp grasp on your magical book.
Dave Rywall on December 15, 2009 at 12:41 PM

Hey it’s everyone’s fav Canadian Dufus!
Well Davy I’m not sure you have read the Bible, but the first half called The Old Testament is a history of the Jewish people. In the second half called the New Testament the only violence is a beat down Jesus gave some money changers for defiling the temple, one of the apostles cutting off the ear of a Roman for trying to arrest Jesus (which Jesus healed), and Jesus willingly going to his death. What is so magical is that Jesus had a choice, and rather than run away like a liberal, he went to his death knowing what pain and horror awaited him because he love humanity so much.

It’s not indoctrination. It’s called raising a child up in the way he should go. Just like teaching the ten commandments in ways they can understand. Like There is but one God, and he is who we worship. You can’t make money or anything else be the most important thing in your life. You can’t steal your sister’s stuff. You can’t murder people in cold blood. You have to listen to mom and dad. You can’t talk dirty, using God’s name as a curseword. You can’t be so envious of your friends when they have stuff you can’t have. You can’t cheat on your wife. You have to make Sunday a day of worship. You can’t lie.

Basic stuff. Not indoctrination, but doing your job as a parent to raise your kids the right way.

So don’t get your little panties in a wad about your semantics issues. Just recognize that in this instance, you’re just wrong.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

davidk on December 15, 2009 at 12:55 PM

Actually, Correctly translated, there is no ‘cross’ at all.

“For the testimony (logos) of the upright pole that enables us to stand (stauros) is to those who are perishing (apollumi – having received the death penalty; who are destroyed, lost, put entirely out of the way, abolished, finished and rendered useless; declared one who must be put to death) foolishness (moria – moronic, folly, absurd, senseless, and ignorant), but to us who are being saved (sozo – delivered, made whole, preserved, kept safe and sound, rescued from danger and destruction) it is the intrinsic power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)

It’s about the testimony, not the ghoulish crucifix the child drew. Many people are led astray from the Word.
That’s so sad.

Come on. An eight-year-old wouldn’t understand that the symbolism that he was expressing — that Christians have used for two millennia — of Jesus on a Cross was a violent image at all. What eight-year-old would understand the mechanics of a crucifixion, the most degrading and painful death imaginable?

In all probability, he was showing that he connected Christmas as the birth of Jesus, whom he then connected to his life, death and resurrection. The Jesus who was sent by God to be the savior of us all.